Category Archives: Viral Marketing

May 02

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Or was it?

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If two leading trade journals are any indication, the advertising industry is suffering from a Mood-swings1 severe case of manic depression.

On the one hand, there's The Delaney Report (TDR), which humbly bills itself as 'the international newsletter for marketing, advertising and media executives'. TDR just ran a lead story entitled, 'We'll Take It from Here.' The text provides a sobering report about inroads being made across the board by public relations. “No longer is it uncommon to have a PR agency compete for a client's services (PR, digital, advertising and direct) versus a traditional advertising agency.” TDR says, “PR is now in the sweet spot of a company's marketing plans.” Nice. Very nice.

Unfortunately, though, TDR then dives deep into PR's gains in social media and corroborates its thinking with observations from the heads of three PR holding companies: Harris Diamond of Weber, Gary Stockman of Porter and Ken Luce of H&K. Now, I could be wrong, but I'll bet an annual subscription to TDR (a damned pricey proposition, BTW), that none of these three, old white guys personally blogs, tweets, posts comments, podcasts or does anything else that would remotely resembles engaging in social media. Asking these three for their views on social media is akin to asking a couch potato what it's like to compete in a 230-mile cycling race. “Tough, dude. Very tough.” C'mon TDR, show some journalistic chops, dig a little deeper and interview PR executives who actually walk the talk.

And, now, for something completely different, take a gander at another ad industry trade: Michael Wolff's supercharged revamp of AdWeek, which calls itself 'The Voice of Media.' Methinks this particular voice suffers from laryngitis.

How else to explain its love fest with all things advertising? You'd never know traditional advertising is staggering like some drunken sailor on shore leave. Or, that other disciplines such as PR and interactive are stealing away market share faster than you can say land grab.

Instead, AdWeek's pages are an unapologetic homage to the 30-second TV spot (ugh) and mainstream TV advertising in general (Yuck. What's become of one-on-one marketing and engaging in a conversation with customers?). There are even photographic retrospectives of Doyle Dane Bernbach's and McCann-Erickson's offices from the halcyon days of the 1960s (should PR Week retaliate with a photo essay of, say, the Lobsenz-Stevens offices of the mid-1980s featuring an adolescent wunderkind named Edward Aloysius Moed?).

Like just about everything else, I suspect the truth about advertising's massive struggle to reinvent itself lies somewhere in-between TDR's doom-and-gloom report and AdWeek’s sunshine-and-roses tome.

I'd suggest readers view the two the way I do The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and Fox News and MSNBC, respectively (absorb the extreme POVS of each, realizing the truth lies somewhere in the midst of the murkiness).

In the meantime, though, a quick note to the big agency PR guys: I'm happy to issue an apology if you fellas actually do engage in social media.

Mar 28

Do as I say, not as I do

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Despite the fact that Fortune 500 social media budgets are expanding at a faster rate than the  Chicharito-twitter   average American's waistline, only 15 of 143 chief marketing officers audited by Business Insider have active Twitter accounts. Even worse, less than 15 percent have NO social media footprint whatsoever. That means they don't blog, Tweet, or post comments on chat forums. Nothing. Nada. Which begs the question: exactly how ARE CMO's spending their days? Watching re-runs of “I love Lucy”?

This is both dismaying and alarming. How can a CMO sign off on a multi-million dollar social media campaign, yet have no first-hand knowledge of how the blogosphere works? Even worse, how can a CMO look his CEO in the eye and say, “Yes, Mr. Fatbottomblues, I believe we need to reallocate all of those monies to social media.”

This has all the earmarks of a classic Mike Wallace "60 Minutes" ambush interview. I can just picture Mike and his team sneaking up on an unsuspecting Fortune 500 chief marketing officer just as she pulls into her executive parking space…

Wallace: “Ms. Highfalutin? Hello, Mike Wallace with "60 Minutes." What? Of course, I'm still alive. Quick question: your firm spends $50 million in social media advertising and content, correct? So how come you yourself don't Tweet or blog or have any social footprint whatsoever?”

Highfalutin: “I have no comment.”

Wallace: “Oh, c'mon. How can you authorize millions of dollars of spending when you have no idea how the blogosphere works? Isn't that like telling a good friend to go sky diving even though you, yourself, have never done it? I wouldn't want you as a friend and I'll bet your CEO wouldn't want you as his CMO when we tell him you've never, ever tried to blog or Tweet.”

Highfalutin: “I've never recommended sky diving to anyone.”

Wallace: “Tell our audience of millions why you yourself don't have a social footprint, but feel confident spending tens of millions of your corporation's dollars doing just that? Ms. Highfalutin, why are you running away? Ms. Highfalutin, I'm going to Tweet about your cowardice!”

I think CMOs who have no social footprint are, in a way, cowards. How can they call themselves marketers when they have no first-hand knowledge of the fastest-growing medium in our business? eMarketer predicts U.S. marketers will spend more than $3 billion in social and digital programs in 2011, a figure they expect to increase by a further 27 percent in 2012.

And, yet CMOs stand pat. Here's why:

– They convince themselves they're too busy to find the time. Psychologists call that avoidance behavior.
– They say they don't understand the new technology. That's a cop out.
– They're afraid something they blog or Tweet might be politically incorrect and cost them their lucrative job. Now, that one I buy. Fear is a powerful motivator.

Whatever the reason for their lack of engagement, these Luddites of the corporate world need to get off the dime pronto. If I were the editor of Ad Age or Ad Week and aspired to become a latter-day Woodward or Bernstein, I'd assign a team of investigative reporters to dig into the Business Insider story. If true, it amounts to a scam, if not a scandal.

Aug 25

Could 60 million Americans be wrong?

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Up-ie A brand new Pew Research Center survey shows that 21 percent of the American population doesn't use the Internet at all. That's  60 million people!

And, it's not just the old 'digital divide' that's causing folks not to tune out, turn off and power down. According to Pew, the 60 million plus, non-tech heads stay away because:
– They don't have a computer (OK, fine, a digital divide)
– It's too expensive (Fine. The damn divide again, but wait….)
– It's too difficult or frustrating
– They think it's a waste of time
– They don't have access (Fine. Divide.)
– They're too busy (That response fascinates me. The Web's a huge time saver for this blogger.)
– They don't need or want it (Put that in your social media pipe and smoke it)
– They're too old to learn (So much for these old dogs learning new tricks)
– They reported having a bad experience with Ed Moed's 'MeasuringUP' blog (Now, that makes sense).

Simultaneously, Pew reports the Internet's explosive growth has finally slowed. Sixty-six percent of respondents reported having a high-speed Internet connection at home which is up just marginally from the 63 percent saying the same thing last year.

So, here's my question: knowing that some 60 million Americans aren't using the Internet at all, why are we not seeing opinion pieces on the subject? PR Week, PR News, Holmes and the other industry trades are filled to the brim with the latest, greatest, social media case studies, features and announcements. And everyone's arguing about which marketing discipline deserves to lead the social media discourse. But, what about the huge market that doesn't want or need the Internet? Don't our journalists owe us thinking on the subject?

Lost in the social media land rush mentality is the reasoned approach a person such as our very own Sam Ford takes. He's never suggested the Internet is the ‘be-all end-all’ for each and every client. Instead, he urges they first LISTEN before acting. Listening would enable clients and agencies alike to uncover the 60 million non-Internet users who, I guarantee, are a core constituent audience for lots and lots of organizations. And, once one has listened, one can determine the best strategies with which to engage.

So, the next time you're in a new business pitch and the prospect asks about your firm's social media strategy, turn the tables and ask what her organization's plan is to reach the 60 million Americans who aren't using the web. Ask her if she's taken the time to listen to the non-Internet users. If nothing else, it will differentiate you from every other agency in the pitch who, I guarantee, will do nothing but wax poetic about their digital capabilities.

Aug 04

Timeless academia in need of re-publishing

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TODAY'S GUEST POST IS BY MICHAEL DRESNER, CEO, PEPPERCOM'S BRAND² SQUARED LICENSING DIVISION.

Long before I entered the workforce I read an article in college called “Marketing Myopia” by
Usps-USPostalService Theodore Levitt. It was laborious reading– not because of complicated subject matter, but because I was two years out of high school and acting my age. I never forgot it. And, in the same way readers refer back to “Catcher in the Rye” or “Huckleberry Finn” (other books I didn’t understand the first time I read them), there are profound lessons that can’t be missed.

“Marketing Myopia”– first published in 1960– provokes a businessperson to rethink and sharpen the definition of the industry in which they have a presence. The more narrow that industry is defined, the more risk a businessperson applies to her or his future. Fact is, too many industries become obsolete once new innovations fulfill the same customer needs– more easily, more quickly, more cheaply. The classic example from “Marketing Myopia” is the railroad ecosystem of the 19th century. Railways and train manufacturers alike had a grip on the industry of getting people from points A to B. But they always (and still) define their industry as one of train travel. If they considered their industry as one of people travel– and leveraged their engineers, government relations, cash position accordingly– they could have been the automobile and highway conglomerates of the 20th century. Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan would have simply worked for Union Pacific. The rest is history there.

I was reminded of this analogy in a Newsweek article last month, quantifying the electronic communication trend from 2000 to 2010. Unsurprisingly, 12 billion e-mails sent in 2000, 247 billion in 2010.  Four hundred thousand texts in 2000, 4.5 billion in 2010. Here’s another trend: 208 billion letters mailed in 2000, and 176 billion in 2010. Where was the US Postal Service (either the service, the infrastructure or the brand name) in all of this?  They rode the contraction train for sure. If they have anything to do with society’s expanding e-mail and texting activity, I haven’t seen them.

What a shame. For centuries, the USPS had a near lock on the industry in which they are now a dinosaur. Like the railways of old, USPS had (and has) staff by the thousands. Consumers across every demographic go out of their way to stand in line and prepay for the service. Its balance sheet is a practical ATM machine that most CFOs would kill for. And the universal experience of pressing a fresh stamp on an envelope is a brand moment no other entity has ever been able to replicate. No doubt– they have stayed atop the mail business. 

Except that’s not what their business is or ever was. The USPS was a driver (and now follower) of the written communication business. And by sticking to paper, envelopes, stamps and metal boxes, they were wedded to the feature instead of the benefit. Imagine having an electronic “stamp” option to credentialize every e-mail. (MS Outlook does have that option, hidden obscurely.)  It may sound inconvenient, but we’ve been doing it for centuries. The USPS could have brought their leadership from traditional postal service to digital communication. Their brand equity was far more embedded in consumer psyche even 15 years ago relative to Hotmail, Gmail, Facebook, and most every other way we now express ourselves in writing. Postal service personnel still abound, but let’s face it– en masse at least, they’re on borrowed time. Kind of like trains.

Nearly twenty years after I first read “Marketing Myopia” I spend my days trying to convince brand owners that by testing their relevance in new categories they can rethink the industry definition in which they must thrive. It shouldn’t be this tough.  But lots of managers have noses to the grindstone, putting out the fire du jour, with so little time to step back, putting their company’s futures in peril. Is the New York Times in the newspaper business or the information distribution business?  Are PR firms in the media placement business or the client repositioning business?  Are these legitimate questions?  Does anyone go back to re-read business articles from the early 1960s?  “Marketing Myopia” is worth a re-look.  Unlike the industries it laments, Theodore Levitt’s treatise will never go out of style.

Apr 06

There’s nothing thick about this brick

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It's rare to find an advertising agency that does a superior job of marketing itself. The Martin Single-brick Agency is one notable exception. It's rarer still to find an ad agency that believes advertising exists to sell a client's wares. Most creative directors (and, trust me, I've known my share) think they're the second coming of Billy Wilder, John Ford or Alfred Hitchcock, and look to print and broadcast as a means to express their inner Spielberg and, critically, win awards. Client sales be damned.

That's what makes the new OgilvyOne 'World's Greatest Salesperson' campaign a home run in this agency marketer cum blogger's book. Its genius lies in its simultaneous simplicity, call to action and return to the agency's roots (no mean feat accomplishing those three goals in one fell swoop).

The campaign is actually a 15-country contest to find and reward the world's greatest salesperson. The challenge: use a specially branded channel on YouTube, along with Twitter, Facebook and other social media to sell a red brick. Yes, a red brick. The most creative campaign creator wins a three-month internship at OgilvyOne.

Apart from simply being clever as hell, the campaign returns the agency to its founder's core concepts: Ad legend David Ogilvy always believed advertising existed to sell products, not win awards.

I'm a huge proponent of agency marketing and chafed when my long-gone (but clearly not forgotten) Brouillard CEO told me it was a total waste of time. “Clients want us focused on doing their work. That's how we charge premium rates,” he'd sniff. He was all about charging premium rates and always positioned the now defunct firm as the 'Tiffany's of advertising.' A noble aspiration to be sure but, ultimately a doomed one since no one knew who the hell we were because we never marketed ourselves.

I'm of the opinion that clients and prospects hire agencies who understand how to differentiate and market their own services. In fact, I've often heard Peppercom clients say that our agency first attracted their attention through our thought leadership on a relevant subject. 'Why hire an agency to market for me if they can't do it for themselves?' clients would ask rhetorically. And yet most agencies can't, or won't.

We're one of the few PR firms that believes in aggressive agency marketing. It's stood us in good stead and we'll continue to invest the time and resources to drive it forward.

I'd like to think it takes a good marketer to recognize a great one. So, here's a tip of the cap to the OgilvyOne greatest salesperson contest. I love it. And, I have to believe the late David Ogilvy shares my feeling and is smiling down from that great sales convention in the sky. Always be closing, David. ABC.

Jun 23

I highly recommend it

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Public relations is in the midst of unprecedented change. Traditional media relations, while still important, has been equaled, if not surpassed by social media. Indeed, we’re seeing more and more clients ask about word-of-mouth. How does one inspire, motivate and encourage a prospective or current customer to ‘recommend’ an organization’s product or service to a peer? The answer  to that single question contains the key to the future of marketing communications.

June 23 - socialmedia  

Like many forward-looking organizations, we’re grappling with how one goes about ‘encouraging’ or ‘enabling’ recommendations. We don’t know the full answer, but we have some ideas. In the spirit of openness and transparency, we’d like to get your perspective as well.

So, if you don’t mind, click the survey link below and let me know what you think. I promise to share the findings in a future blog that, I hope, you’ll highly recommend to others.

Check out the survey here.

May 21

Because I said so, that’s why.

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Guest Post by Maggie O’Neill

May 22 - mommy blogger Because I said so, that’s why. An iconic Mom-phrase that resonates with most of us but is taking on new meaning in the marketing world today.  The power of what Mom says – and even the word Mom itself – is quickly becoming the industry’s hottest new ticket, despite the fact that Moms have been around and influencing purchasing since the beginning of time. Eve…Apple?

From terms like Mamaste to Momosphere, the Power Moms, identified by Nielsen  as ages 25-54 with at least one child, have a voice that is $2 trillion dollars strong for US brands* and make up  20 percent of today’s  online population.  And the group itself is becoming more diverse year after year, demanding targeted marketing to their definition of “mom.”

With all this buzz and promise, a misstep or two by the marketing industry and we could be headed for a “mom-com” bust.  One mom told me that she complained about the benefits of a face care product online.  She got an email back and a Tweet apologizing that they fell short and that they were sending her a free sample of the exact same product.  Great opportunity, completely blown. 

Why?  The almost automated response and one way conversation from the company , plus the fact that they sent what the mom considered a bad product back to her, not only pushed her away, but you know she told a million people about it by now.  What should they have done?   The face care company had a perfect opportunity to engage this mom in a dialogue and find out what the issues were and if another product might make more sense for her.  Did her friends have similar issues?  Could they provide another recommendation, coupons to one of their other product lines for her family?  Simply asking what they could do rather than pushing back a bad solution would have helped them not only win back this mom, but remain a recommended brand to her network and influencers.

Continue reading →

Apr 30

Spotted: Peppercom AE devouring the latest episode of Gossip Girl on Metro North…

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Guest Post by Laura Mills.Gossipgirlimage

Yes, at 25 (old enough to have an SAT score graded on the 1600 scale) I watch the CW’s Gossip Girl.
Fortunately, I’m not alone.  Millions share an obsession with the high school teens of Manhattan’s elite, anticipating each scandalous episode, narrated by an enigmatic blogger against the backdrop of New York’s trendiest hot spots.  On paper the concept sounds ridiculous.  Yet, while pausing an episode on my iPod to arrive at a Connecticut train station, it occurs to me how progressive Gossip Girl really is.

A recent New York magazine article reports that new episodes of Gossip Girl pulled in an average of 2.5 million viewers before the writers strike, an atrocious number, considering the 23.6 million tuned into last week’s American Idol.  Traditionally, this measurement should lead to quick cancellation.  Yet, the new show thrived.  As New York points out, new episodes regularly rotate at the top of iTunes’ most downloaded list, while hundreds of thousands watch free episodes from the network’s Web site.  Personally, I think a television show revolving around a blog should have its own life online, but while Web components and a Second Life presence don’t independently make Gossip Girl a digital standout, the fact that it is the first television show to find primary traction online is a significant development in the media landscape.

Gossip Girl viewers adapt to new technology faster and use it in more ways than ever.  They have at least one iPod and communicate via text message, IM and Facebook 24 hours a day.  Diaries are no longer hidden under mattresses, but documented with password access through LiveJournal.  They can’t comprehend a time when a handwritten middle school assignment was acceptable, and therefore naturally identify with the integration of new media social issues with classic teenage archetypes.  This generation is our future. 

As marketers, we will be targeting these plugged in, socially networked, skeptically over-stimulated viewers.  In fact, companies are already cashing in on the show’s success through product placement and integrated Web promotions, including Verizon and Victoria’s Secret, as well as a plethora of fashion designers and retailers.  So, while it’s just a mere teenage drama, Gossip Girl shatters the glass ceiling to reach viewers via multiple platforms and keeps them coming back for more.  Perhaps the high school characters aren’t the only ones who should be taking notes?

Jul 06

Mentos: Everybody’s Intern or Nobody’s Fool?

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Mentos recently launched a microsite that caught my attention. MentosIntern.com is a live video feed of Trevor, a 19-year-old intern working out of the Mentos HQ for the summer. In typical intern fashion, Trevor is bombarded with a multitude of tasks throughout the day. The catch is that all of his tasks are submitted by visitors to the site.

At the moment, Trevor is getting hit with random assignments from strangers via phone, IM, and email. The site says "he’ll order you lunch, customize your music playlists, sing on command, and even prank call your colleagues."

Clever stunt for sure and it’s a good example of how brands are continuing to push the envelope in terms of participatory marketing. Mentos certainly knows the benefits of consumer engagement with last year’s surge of diet coke geyser experiments. Will it help sell more Mentos though? Who knows. Interesting and well-executed concept at least. It will be fun to watch as the summer progresses. I’m expecting a Trevor meltdown any day now.

May 17

Ad industry should do its homework first before asking PR: why can’t we all just get along?

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I’m reading more and more articles in the ad trades about PR’s growing importance and its seeming ‘encroachment’ into such ‘traditional’ advertising domains as word-of-mouth.

This week’s Ad Age contains an interesting piece by Noelle Weaver that asks, in effect, why we can’t all just get along. Alongside it, though, is a telling list of comments from various readers, that explain, in part, why the disconnect continues.

One observation from an integrated marketing agency executive inadvertently nails the ‘problem’ on the head. Intending to illustrate how each discipline contributes thinking to the other, he writes, ‘…..PR people often identify the Big Idea and write great headlines and taglines, and the ad creatives come up with great promotions, events and story placement ideas.’ And, therein lies the problem.

Ad people still think of PR as being limited solely to stunts, press releases and media relations. It isn’t. And, it hasn’t been for some time. The best PR is being leveraged to create new, and serious, dialogues with a rapidly-changing end user landscape, and ranges from viral and digital initiatives to thought leadership and strategic partnerships. As long as advertising types continue to see us as stuntmen and women, they’ll continue scratching their heads wondering why we can’t all just get along (and continue to lose more and more of the client’s overall marketing budget).